Connecting with Customers in the Age of Convenience

These days, economic headwinds are affecting all industries. Local businesses are feeling the pain more than most — from a national labor shortage to inventory unpredictability, inflation, and more. To thrive in the face of these challenges, small businesses need to be on top of their game and deliver experiences that delight customers and lead to repeat purchases and referrals. And this starts with staying connected to the modern consumer.  

Across the world, people are abandoning old communication channels and migrating to new, more convenient alternatives. Modern customers book haircuts via Apple iMessage, get medical updates via SMS, and transfer files via WhatsApp. As we’ve seen repeatedly, businesses that adapt to this new communication paradigm will thrive. Those that don’t will die away. And we want yours to be the former. 

That’s why we’ve created this guide that explores our changing communication landscape and how your business can use new technologies to stay connected to your customers online.

Why Connecting with Customers is More Important Than Ever

Today’s consumer expects communication that’s immediate, convenient, and tailored to their individual preferences. With cramped schedules and dozens of competing demands, old communication channels just don’t make sense. “Our patients have busy lives…They have all different schedules and getting on the phone between eight and five isn’t an easy thing,” says Brent Kell, CEO of the Oregon-based urgent-care facility, Valley Immediate Care. 

More importantly, today’s customers aren’t willing to put up with that inconvenience. Instead, they demand communication on their terms: their channel, their schedule, and their purpose. So when someone texts a business, they expect an answer—fast. 

According to PwC, 43% of consumers are even prepared to pay more for a convenient service.

If a business forces them to use unintuitive or unwanted communication channels, it’s likely that they’ll go elsewhere. Consequently, businesses need to create real relationships based on loyalty and trust and connect with customers in the way that is most convenient for them. 

Understanding Your Marketing Channels 

A decade ago, it would have been hard to imagine the number of channels that most marketers now find themselves juggling—text, voice, social media channels, email, and so on. Scaling marketing efforts across these channels while delivering a consistent experience is a challenge. And the difficulties are often exacerbated for multi-location businesses.

That’s why it’s essential to understand your marketing channels—which ones are available to you, which will give you the most return on investment (ROI), how to use them effectively, and most importantly, which ones your customers actually want you to use to contact them. With the right marketing channel strategy, you can stay connected with your customers at every step of the customer journey. 

Connecting with Customers on Your Website 

There was a time when offering a customer service phone number was enough. But these days, customers are shying away from voice-based communication in favor of a fractured array of competing messaging channels—WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, SMS, Apple Messages, Viber, Telegram, live website chat, and LINE, to name but a few. Understanding which channels to promote means first understanding which channels your customers use. One thing we do know is that it all begins with your website.  

When it comes to modern customers, most marketing journeys center around your website. Your ads direct leads to it, your SMS marketing includes links that pull up specific product pages, and your social media posts all link back to it. It’s no surprise that a lot is resting on your website’s ability to connect you with customers. The key is to eliminate communication barriers and provide a wide array of options that your customers can use with a single click. 

When & Why to Use Marketing Forms

We’ve all been there. You attempt to contact a business through their website only to come across a nightmare form-fill—one that asks for your name, phone number, email address, physical address, how you found the website, your birthday, particular pain point, how you want the business to contact you—the list goes on and on. 

Marketing forms like these can be a burden and turn-off for your customers. However, if used correctly, forms can actually be helpful for both your customer and you. The key is to use them at the right times and keep them brief. 

Because your website should be a link to your call to action, you should always have forms on your contact page. Whenever you use a form that requests information, you should offer up something of equal value in return—whether it’s a free webinar or eBook. The information you ask for should be minimal; like a name, phone number, and email address. 

More effective forms continue conversations over modern channels. For example, you should always use brief form fills for your live chat feature. Once you start a conversation, you can collect information about customers’ pain points and start filling in the rest of their profile.  

Forms can also help you collect opt-ins for messaging campaigns. With this touchpoint, location-specific pages can be generated and shared via URL or QR code. Effective pages provide fields to collect names and emails, use clear legal language to communicate that they’re collecting information for SMS marketing purposes, and are customized to fit your company’s brand. 

If you can create forms that website visitors are actually willing to fill out, they can help you easily segment customers so you know how you can best nurture them. And once customers are in your CRM, you can nurture them into customers for life.

Connecting in Real-Time on Live Chat 

Speaking of live chat, you’re probably aware of how it has gone from a customer preference to an expectation. Approximately 41% of customers expect to see a chat option when they land on your website. A recent survey reported that live chat leads to a 48% increase in revenue per chat hour and a 40% increase in conversion rate. And 41% of consumers prefer live chat support over any other channel. 

Your website connection strategy should include human-managed chat and even chatbots, where appropriate. Because humans do not have the limitations that chatbots have, you need a live chat feature that ensures that customers can also talk to a real person—the “live” part of a live chat feature. Your employees are essential in providing the quality of customer experience and communication your patrons expect. They can understand complex emotions in messages and have a better understanding of human interactions in general. They also notice hidden meanings, so the risk of misunderstandings is dramatically reduced. 

However, some queries only need a short, simple FAQ answer. Because you want to allocate your time and resources (and that of your employees) most effectively, learning when to use a bot and when to have an employee step in is crucial. If you learn how to optimize this channel with both resources appropriately, you can scale your communications in a significant way. 

Scaling Communication with Chatbots 

So, how do you know when to use a human vs. a bot? It depends on the chat—and it depends on the bot. Human-managed live chat support:

• Is ideal for more complex requirements 
• Improves the ability to understand what the customer is saying
• Lets agents handle about three or four (or more) chats at once
• Can provide a more personalized experience, boosting customer engagement 

When used as a supplement to human-managed live chat support, chatbots improve customer communication. When used incorrectly, they hurt communication and negatively impact the customer experience. We recommend proceeding with caution when it comes to chatbots, as a human is always going to provide a better experience. So monitor automated conversations appropriately.  

Chatbots can be as simple or as complicated as you want them to be. The simplest customer service bot will respond to keywords with automatic responses. For example, a customer may type “location” and the chatbot will respond with your store’s address. Or maybe they will share your contact details or business hours when a customer types “contact” or “hours.”  

More advanced chatbots can use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to learn over time. These more advanced bots can provide a higher level of customer service and respond to more complex queries. To increase your quality of customer experience, use chatbots to answer facts or respond to basic requests and then re-route the individual to an employee when necessary. 

Getting Personal with Webchat 

It’s important to note that not all live chat solutions are created equal. Especially when it comes to driving and converting leads. Most live chats just send your customers to chat with a bot or third-party and are mainly used for customer service. It’s no wonder that many customers complain that major live chats have poor lead routing. They also say that going through a managed chat operator is inconvenient. 

You need a live chat feature that connects customers directly to your employees through a modern communication channel and immediately routes them to the party they need to talk to. Enter: Webchat. 

Webchat isn’t a live chat. It’s a text messaging solution that helps you effectively capture and manage leads more efficiently. With Webchat, conversations happen over text and can move from desktop to mobile and back again asynchronously. You meet your leads where they’re at–on their phones. 

Webchat also connects your customers to you immediately and routes them to the specific team members who will be most likely able to help them. More importantly, customers feel like they’re talking to a real person who actually knows what they’re talking about–because they are. 

With a combination of Webchat and FAQ answering software, you can make customer support and communication a breeze for a team of any size and deliver the best experience your customers have ever had. 

Connecting with Customers via Phone, Text & Email

In the world we live in, your customers are using a million and one different communication channels to connect with other people and local businesses. Despite this increase in variety, many of them still rely on mainstays such as phone, text, and email. 

How can you optimize these channels to stay connected to the modern consumer?  

The key is to use a combination of phone, text, and email in a modernized way and reach people in the way that they want to be reached.

Staffing & Managing Calls at Small Businesses

Let’s start with the timeless classic: the phone. 

Seamless and uninterrupted communication stands at the heart of a high-functioning company. 

As a small business, you may not have the time or resources to dedicate someone to speak with customers on the phone across all business hours. That’s why local businesses at the forefront of modern communication are looking for solutions that make talking on the phone more efficient, without sacrificing the benefits that these conversations provide.  

The phone is still a critical channel for local businesses everywhere. Research from Podium shows that 71% of local business customers still have a phone conversation somewhere along the way when making a purchasing decision. With that said, most local businesses are using outdated solutions that simply make and receive calls, without any ability to track and collect key insights stemming from these conversations. That’s a treasure trove of information that your business could be missing! 

Luckily, there are modern phone solutions available that allow local businesses to connect data from phone calls to the rest of the customer journey. When evaluating a phone solution that helps your business capture and convert more leads and improve your data quality, look for solutions that:

• Integrate with your existing communication tools, like texting 
• Offer intelligent call routing options, like forwarding calls to your personal line while outside of business hours
• Maintain privacy and data security for your business and your callers
• Provide a log of your call history that can be easily accessed for follow-up conversations

Using Text Messaging & SMS Marketing to Grow Your Business 

Of course, we can’t talk about phones without talking about messaging. With 3.8 billion smartphone users across the planet and 95% of texts being opened within three minutes, it’s easy to see that text has taken over. 

 You can use text to do a countless number of things: 

• Set appointments
• Gather reviews
• Send invoices
• Collect payments
• Run successful marketing campaigns 

The list goes on and on. And your customers love it. 75% of consumers are OK with receiving SMS messages from brands (after they’ve opted in). And consumers redeem SMS-delivered coupons 10x more than other types of coupons. 

SMS marketing can actually strengthen relationships by inviting responses with its conversational feel. With well-timed messages and relevant content, it feels more intimate than other marketing messages and encourages continued engagement in a way only text can. And it significantly improves customer response time. 

SMS marketing is also one of the most cost-effective campaigns you can run as a local business. Compared to other digital campaigns, text campaigns are extremely low-cost to run, allowing you to engage new leads and increase customer lifetime value at very little cost. Recent data shows that providing options such as text directly increases a local business’s revenue. 

Developing a High-Converting Email Marketing Strategy 

Even with the rise of other communication channels, email remains an important staple of business communication. However, to reach the modern consumer, significant improvements have to be made. 

The average email open rate across all industries hovers around 19% to 22%. To develop a high-converting email marketing strategy:

• Write mobile-friendly copy. Over 80% of shoppers check their emails regularly from their smartphones, which means the first place they may see your message is likely to be on their mobile device. If you want to increase the total number of opens you receive for every campaign, you need to write copy that’s designed to be read on a smaller screen. Your email subject line should be no more than 30 characters to avoid cutoff on most smartphone screens. But the shorter the better. Studies have found that subject lines that are 21 characters or less lead to significantly higher open rates. Limit your pre-header text to 55 characters to ensure most email recipients will receive the full preview. 
• Write better email subject lines. If you want your emails to get read, your copy has to be high converting. Consider the following tips: 

• • Use numbers. Highlight your email’s value–like “5 tips” or “50% off”—right in your subject line. 
  • Personalize. Address your customer by name on the subject line to grab attention. 
  • Add an emoji 😉. Emojis add color and personality to your subject line. Just limit yourself to one or two per email (more can look spammy) and consider whether or not they fit your brand identity. 

• Rethink your email marketing schedule. Nearly 70% of consumers unsubscribe because they’re receiving more emails than they’d like. Sending fewer emails can not only help you retain shoppers, but also make your emails feel more interesting each time your messages land in their inbox. Keep your email rate between one to three times per month to keep your brand in your subscribers’ minds without bombarding them. 
• Consider other email benchmarks. Sometimes other email metrics can show you the real reason your subscribers aren’t opening your emails, beyond just your subject lines. For example, a poor email click-through rate (CTR) or low conversion rate may indicate that your customers aren’t seeing much value from your emails altogether. Take a closer look at your email list. If you notice any subscribers listed as hard bounces, scrub them from your lists to protect your deliverability and keep your average email open rate as accurate as possible. 
• Add text. With the addition of text’s outstanding open and click-through rates to your email campaigns, you can significantly increase the visibility of your messages and expand the reach of your marketing. Pro tip: You can also use email to collect SMS opt-ins. Simply send an email blast prompting people to opt-in to promotional texts. Typically, this is facilitated by a URL link to the online sign-up page, which can live in either the email copy or in your signature.

Connecting with Customers on Social Media

With an estimated 3.6 billion social media users worldwide, it’s easy to see that social media is where the modern customer spends their time. It’s also where they connect with brands and businesses—both ones they’ve patronized and ones they’ve never purchased from before.  

Social networks, just like any other channel of communication, can and should be used for promoting business, attracting customers, and increasing sales. However, many entrepreneurs simply don’t know where to start. More importantly, they don’t know how to use social media platforms to increase the quality and quantity of their customer contact in sustainable ways. This is especially true for local businesses, where there are typically no funds to hire Social Media Marketing specialists for brand promotion.

In this section, we’ll discuss how you can use social media to grow your business, increase the quality of your customer contact, and stay connected to modern customers online—no matter the size of your team. 

Choosing the Right Social Marketing Channels For Your Business

When it comes to the modern consumer, there is no one-size-fits-all equation that every business should use for marketing. That’s why finding the right channels to market with is so important. 

Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok…the list goes on and on. Technically, there are six different types of social media platforms. These include bookmarking, social news, networking, media sharing, microblogging (a particularly effective form of content marketing), and online forum sites. 

While it’s important to consider the specific needs of your target audience when creating your marketing channel strategy, you’ll likely want to focus on networking, media sharing, and microblogging–regardless of your industry. As always, you want to employ a combination of channels rather than a single channel. 

The best platform for your business will depend on your customer demographics and preferences. In this section, we’ll cover the social media mainstays for many businesses: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Be sure to focus on the ones that make sense for your customers! 

Customer Communication on Facebook  

Across any social media platform, posting regularly is key. Not only does it get your content out there in crowded feeds, but increases engagement with customers and potential customers. 

As long as you’re active on Facebook, you can display texts telling customers exactly how soon they can expect a response from you. Facebook requires that you visit your Facebook Page at least once a week and respond to 90% of messages in the response time you display on your Facebook Page. 

Tone also counts. Because Facebook is a platform where people interact with friends in a relaxed atmosphere, so you should keep a light and casual tone when communicating with your target audience.

Additionally, with more than 1.3 billion users, Facebook Messenger is the second most popular messaging app in the world. 

To connect with customers through Facebook, install Facebook Messenger on your website and then customize it. “Response Assistant” provides a helpful set of messaging options to help you automate repetitive communication with customers. You can also set up Instant Replies—automated greetings that tell customers when to expect a response from you. Since you can’t monitor Messenger 24/7, Instant Replies are an easy way to still respond even when you’re not near your smartphone or computer. In addition, you can set up a greeting text and follow-up messages.

Customer Communication on Instagram 

Instagram is one of the most powerful social media platforms out there. Its specific advantage is its capacity (and expectation) to foster multimedia interaction, focusing on images and videos rather than text. This makes Instagram a particularly fruitful platform for more robust, personal communications that center around visual components. 

To connect with customers on Instagram, you should take advantage of all of Instagram’s features:  

• Send your customers voice and video messages, which is more personalized than other forms of communication
• Host group video calls with a customer and multiple members of your team
• Allow customers to send you pictures of products that may need to be replaced
• Use a social media chatbot to answer FAQs

As you’ve probably assumed, when it comes to Instagram, “show” is more important than “tell.” And a picture is definitely worth more than a thousand words. Make sure to use devices that have high-quality photo and video capacities and to brush up on your artistic skills for the content you send as well as the content you post. 

Customer Communication on Twitter

Twitter is known for its robust brand engagement. Approximately 80% of users have mentioned a brand in one of their tweets.

Twitter can help you to keep a pulse on how people are talking about your brand. If you find negative reactions or comments, you can resolve them quickly. You can apologize, promise a resolution, and then move things to direct messaging for specifics. For positive mentions, a simple thank you can go a long way.  

Make sure to keep messages and replies brief and to the point, in keeping with the tone and aim of the platform. Where appropriate, humor can also play a major role in maintaining connectivity. Twitter is the platform where you can really show your brand’s personality and let loose. 

With the right amount of creativity, engagement through this medium can do a lot to help your customers understand what you’re all about. 

Regularly communicate with your target audience by tagging them in posts, responding to comments they post, and hosting events such as giveaways and competitions. Make sure to study up on how to build a community and implement community management tactics.  

Customer Communication on LinkedIn

Whether you’re selling business services or collaborating with peers, LinkedIn can help you make the right connections—and an apt headline is a big part of that.

Simply having a LinkedIn headline is a necessary step toward reaching All Star status, a LinkedIn accomplishment for completing your profile that makes you 40 times more likely to get contacted by other users. If you follow great LinkedIn headline examples to build your unique 120 characters, the likelihood of other users reaching out (and responding to your messages) can only increase.

If you own a B2B business, successful interactions with other LinkedIn users are particularly important. This is because B2B companies can gather as much as 80% of their social media leads directly from LinkedIn.

How do you write a great headline?

1. Write for your audience
2. Include your business name
3. Add a value proposition
4. Include keywords
5. Get creative (show a bit of personality!)

Headlines we love: 

• “Bestselling writer about habits and happiness at gretchenrubin.com” 
• “Global Economist, Author, Investor in the Future, Marathon Runner”
• “CEO at Event Tech Tribe | Growth Mentor | On a mission to close the digital knowledge gap”

Connecting with Customers for Reviews & Referrals

Today, online reviews impact the customer journey more than ever and play a significantly increasing role in connecting with customers.

• 93% of consumers say online reviews have an impact on their purchase decisions
• 65% of consumers have read an online review in the last week
• Approximately half of consumers are willing to travel farther and pay more to patronize a business with higher reviews

But the vast majority of consumers leave a review once a quarter or less, and a fifth say they’ve never left one. So what’s the best way to connect with customers to generate authentic reviews? The key is to deliver an outstanding communication experience and make leaving reviews ridiculously easy for your customers. The two critical components? Timing and convenience. You should also respond to reviews, both negative and positive, to keep them flowing. 

The Power of Reviews and Social Proof 

Reviews currently influence 88% of consumers in discovering a local business. They are 2x more likely to be an important factor in choosing a local business than loyalty, and 7.4 x more likely than traditional marketing. 

They also significantly affect the behavior of future buyers. As do your responses to them. According to a recent study, 56% of consumers say a business’s responses to reviews have changed their perspective on the business. Typically, businesses are more likely to respond to positive reviews than negative ones.

However, this should really be the other way around. If you have to let any slide, miss a few positive review responses and respond to every negative review. Consumers are more likely to look at negative reviews than positive ones before engaging with you. Responding to reviews consistently and appropriately is a fantastic way to stay connected to the modern customer and increase the quality of your customer contact.

Responding to every review is ideal, but not every team can do that. Choose a review to response ratio that is actionable for your business and stick to it. A well-rounded review-to-response ratio is around 1 response for every 4 reviews.

Local businesses are 1.4x more likely to have an average star rating of 4.5 or higher if they are proactive about their online reputation vs. if they are passive. 

Growing & Sharing Reviews on Your Website

Because reviews are so powerful in influencing behavior, and because the modern customer journey centers around your website, featuring positive reviews on your homepage is a great way to convert leads. Consider this example from Power Ford New Mexico. Their homepage prominently features glowing reviews they’ve received across multiple platforms. This tactic helps build trust with potential customers.

Growing & Responding to Reviews on Google Reviews

Google currently hosts the most visible reviews on the internet and places a big emphasis on local reviews, meaning you have the potential to rise to the top of the Google Map Pack. In order to collect effectively, local businesses need to rethink how they ask for reviews and make the process as frictionless and convenient as possible. The key? Text. 

Over a third of consumers who receive a text review invite leave one, and approximately 41% of consumers prefer text to communicate vs. 18% who prefer email. The right tools can make collecting reviews as easy as sending your customers a text with a short review link. 

Using text review invites can result in significantly higher response rates and enables businesses to collect as many as 15x more Google reviews than traditional email-based platforms. After switching to text to collect reviews, Paul’s Pest Control jumped half a star on Google within 24 hours and gathered more reviews in one month than they had in five years.

Growing & Responding to Reviews on Yelp 

One Harvard Business School study found that independent restaurants see a boost in revenue from five to nine percent when their Yelp scores go up by one star. Because Yelp discourages directly asking customers for reviews, you have to strategize a bit more by reminding customers about their experience and making it crazy easy for them to leave reviews. Consider the following tips for growing your Yelp reviews: 

1. Add. Add official Yelp review badges to your website and Facebook page so customers are one click away from leaving a review. (Remember to claim your business page first!)
2. Show. Display a “Find Us On Yelp” window sticker at your business. 
3. Remind. Remind customers consistently how important reviews are for your business.
4. Ask. Luckily, there aren’t any rules against asking for reviews on other sites. If you find yourself interacting with a happy customer, ask them to share their experience on a site you use. 
5. Thank. As always, thank customers for their reviews and support!

Growing & Responding to Reviews on Industry-Specific Review Sites

Each industry is different, and industry-specific review sites can be an important part of your overall reputation strategy. But which online review site is right for your business and which should you focus on? Here are a few to get you started: 

Legal: 

• Avvo

Auto:

• Dealer Rater
• Cars.com
• Edmunds

Home services:

• Home Advisor 
• Angi (Formerly, Angie’s List)

Healthcare:

• Healthgrades
• Vitals

You should also check out review sites that you might not normally consider, (such as Yellow Pages, Better Business Bureau, Consumer Affairs, and Merchant Circle), as well as other review and customer engagement platforms that might be unique to your local community, industry, or target customer. 

• Yellow Pages: Yellow Pages was, at one time, a paper book directory that people used to find businesses. While you probably don’t care to list your business in a physical phone book nowadays, yellowpages.com is an online directory that can help people find your business online. 
• BBB: Better Business Bureau (BBB) has been helping people find businesses they can trust for over 100 years. Getting BBB accreditation shows that your company meets the BBB standards and qualifies as a trustworthy, reliable business. 
• ConsumerAffairs: ConsumerAffairs is another popular website that allows businesses to collect reviews, engage with customers, and generate more referrals. 
• MerchantCircle: MerchantCircle is an online network of local business owners that helps connect people with qualified businesses and quality services.

Keeping Up with Response Times Across Marketing Channels

According to researchers, businesses in some industries need to respond to leads in five minutes or less—or risk losing them forever. “If you aren’t doing that, the guy next door probably is,” Tina Tasche of Van Horn Automotive says. “And if they’re quicker than you, they’re going to get the sale.”

Consider the auto industry. Ten years ago, a consumer would have happily called a car dealership, enquired about a particular model, and then waited a few hours for a sales rep to call them back. But year by year, reps attempted to outdo one another by delivering a faster service. As the average response rate improved, consumers learned to expect faster responses. These two trends created a feedback loop and modern consumers now expect near-instantaneous communication from organizations.

This trend is not restricted to the automotive industry, either.

First-response time, which CMO Council described as the most important attribute to customer service, has improved across most industries. Wait times and resolution times have both also fallen dramatically. Nowadays, customers expect lightning-fast replies, regardless of the size of an organization—and they’ll go elsewhere if you don’t deliver it.

Identifying & Communicating Response Times to Customers 

Yes, your response time should be fast. But it’s almost more important that your customer knows when to expect your response—and that you meet it or beat it. Customers are generally more concerned with whether you make a promise and stick to it than what your actual response time is.  

Regardless of your service level agreement (SLA), the best thing to do is to inform customers directly and be entirely transparent. You can do this in the greeting message that you send, such as “We will respond during normal business hours” or “we will get back to you within an hour.” Having an instant reply feature or greeting message that communicates your SLA clearly and immediately can go a long way in offsetting any frustration customers might have felt toward your wait times. 

The goal is to instantly set expectations and leave no customer contact unanswered. You should work closely with your team to make sure you’re aligned on what expectations you are setting and how you will work to meet them. 

Average SLAs Across Different Communication Channels 

SLAs across different communication channels vary, as do your customers’ expectations. These can vary further by industry, location, and season, which should also be taken into account. 

With these variables in mind, here are some general rules of thumb: 

• Text. The respected response time for a text is as soon as possible. However, you can note that your team will not get back to customers in the evenings, on weekends, or during holidays. 
• Social media. Generally, the same rules as text apply. However, LinkedIn, with its professional association, has a bit more leeway. You can treat this platform more like email. 
• Live chat. The respected response time for live chat is also as soon as possible, or at least within the first ten minutes.  
• Phone call. Employees should pick up during business hours and return calls within the business day. 
• Email. You should check your email daily so as not to fall behind. Customers expect a response within 24 hours or one business day. 

Trying to keep up with everything can feel extremely daunting, especially if you’re a small business working to meet big expectations with fewer resources. 

Conclusion: Scaling Customer Communication 

To stay connected to the modern customer, organizations need a modern platform to manage their customer interactions. These platforms augment human agents, allowing them to efficiently tackle mountains of questions, queries, and complaints. They allow businesses to not only deliver better customer service, but also create more scalable processes.

Modern tools can also allow you to deliver a truly modern, seamless customer experience.  An experience of this type requires not just being present on multiple channels, but having the ability to consolidate systems and gain visibility into the customer journey. It requires the capacity to communicate and coordinate effectively with employees across the entire organization, track and measure results, and respond promptly to customers on the channel they want to use. Perhaps most importantly, it requires radical consolidation of all inbound communication to ensure that no customer contact is missed.  

Podium is the leading marketing and communication platform for local businesses. With Podium, you can:

• Win more revenue and market share
• Compete with a modern, on-demand customer experience
• Improve the speed and efficiency of communications

Want to get started with Podium now? Start a free trial today.